Amador 360 Winery Collective

Great selection of small lot, exclusive wines. Staff is very knowledgeable and always happy to serve!

A stop at the visitor’s center on a Saturday or Sunday is a must if you’ve never been to this area. Stan Trails, who runs the center, is among the most knowledgeable local experts I’ve ever come across for this region. Stan can definitely talk wine, and not in a pretentious and snobby way. He truly loves what he does and is happy to provide advice about the best places in the area to visit.

A tasting room for the small local wineries that don’t have one of their own, Amador 360 pours an excellent selection of Amador and El Dorado county wines. Owner Brian Miller is very knowledgeable and helpful, and the entire staff is friendly and courteous. The wines selected to feature on any given weekend are uniformly excellent and reasonably priced. (Under $ 30 for the most part.) They will also ship wine for you. Definitely worth a stop.

Just adding my vote for Amador 360 Winery Collective for a place to stop and taste wines you won’t find anywhere else (expect, perhaps, a local restaurant). Pouring wines from small vineyards, the staff is knowledgeable, not only of local wines, but of wineries and wine regions in general. They charge a small (for many other California regions) tasting fee, that can be used towards bottle purchase.
In addition to getting to try new, different, and yummy wines, you’ll be tempted to take at least a few home, since they are very reasonable priced for the quality.
All in all, a great stop to make.

Amador County Wineries… Focused on the smaller wineries. Nice tasting, quite setting. We caught him on a busy weekend on Independence Weekend so they shuffled us through quickly. He tries to move his wine.

There are still many wineries in Amador County that offer free wine tasting. They tend to be the up-​and-​coming or family wineries.
Then, there are some wineries that charge $ 5. They tend to be the big, established wineries, often with a very expensive facility on beautiful grounds with a view. They will usually mention the fee up front.
Then, there’s this place. It’s a common storefront, on the main road in town, offering a taste of a few mediocre wines. They present themselves as a kind of visitors center, even though they’re not. After the tasting, they break the news that there is a $ 5 charge. Very sneaky.
There are so many wonderful places to go and taste wines in Amador County. Don’t waste your time at this place.

Amador 360 is a good first stop on your tasting tour in Plymouth, since they offer tastes of quality wineries who don’t have tasting rooms of their own. Of note most definitely are Fiddletown Cellars, Distant Cellars and Los Portales — their Zinfandels and Tempranillo respectively were well worth the stop!
6 of us popped in around 12:15 on a sunny Saturday and were given about 20 minutes of attention by our pourer, who gave us a lot of information and made a very memorable joke: all dumpage from the spit buckets is sold to Charles Shaw to make their Two Buck Chuck! Ha!
The standard deal of $ 5 a taste waived with purchase honored even with 4 tasters and two purchasers, which was very appreciated. I also was able to purchase one of their wine glass for $ 3.49, and they recommended a couple other stops that we altered our plan to include. Books, art and wine accoutrement were also available for sale in their large and well-​appointed shop, and they were happy to share their Wi-​Fi password with me. I highly recommend stopping by Amador 360!

We pulled up, unsure if the visitor’s center was open and out walked the keeper welcoming us in. We wanted to make sure we had correct directions to Amador Flower Farm. We were heading up to their Spring-​Fling event. I sadly did not get the fellow’s name as he was very informed on the goings on in the area… and we later found out was a grower/​vintner for over 20 years in Amador County! We got our bearings and while browsing the many brochures from area attractions and business owners two other folks pulled up asking for help as well. We found out that our host’s wife was to be honored that evening with a dinner as she was selected as the artist of the hour in a gallery in Sutter Creek, some artist’s collective or association of some kind. How fun!
Stop in if you have any questions… this is the other half of the story at Amador 360 Winery Collective… a perfect place to get your bearings and any and all information you would ever need to enjoy your day in Plymouth and surrounding towns in Amador County!

Great chance to try the People’s Choice winners today! Stop by and say Hi to Big Dick!

Thanks for the fun! Loved the meet the wine maker from mount dorado! Stop in, all locals wines :)

360 is basically a tasting room for those wineries in the area who do not have tasting rooms, including Yorba, Fiddletown Cellars, with a tasting fee of $ 5. Brian is knowledgeable about the area and the wines. If you are unfamiliar with Amador County definitely stop here first and he can give you some great suggestions of other places to try. I wasn’t a huge fan of any of the wines during my visit, but I think the concept of 360 is outstanding. They also have a great facebook page with lots of good information about whats going on in the area.

Gregg and his partner established a cool shipping business out of Amador that can pick up wines from any of the local tasting rooms and ship to most states.
Gregg also uses the space to double as a tasting room where you can taste 6 wines from Yorba and Fiddletown Cellars, which do not have their own tasting rooms, for $ 5. He also «brings the grapes back home» with many wines available for purchase made outside the region with Amador grapes.
We had a very informative conversation about wine making and the future of Amador. This is a good stop to start your day of tasting.

Not hard to find. Just south of the middle of Plymouth on Highway 49.
It has an extensive collection of wines that are both made in the area and wines made «outside» of the area but use locally grown grapes. Gregg likes to talk about «bringing the grapes home» when referring to the wines made in other than Amador County.
We tasted many wines both white and red. His discussion with us and his descriptions of the wines were helpful. We purchased wines that we liked and knew that we weren’t going to taste because these places use him as their tasting room. We were able to taste a number of zins compared across styles.
We bought:
2008 Yorba Barbera at $ 28. Good structure and character of the varietal. Even with its age, it could benefit from more bottle aging as it is made with higher acids and tannins than those at Driven, Runquist and Cooper.
2009 Fiddletown Bent Bow @ $ 25. Good fruit and not overly spicey. Nice and easy on the palate with a decent finish. Bottle aging would round this one out.
2008 Bootleg Port @ $ 18 for a split. Very nice and fruity (fig) flavors. Made by St. Amant near Lodi, CA.
Gregg and I compared my list with his «recommended» list of Amador providers based on our tasting with him and I made some minor adjustments to my plans.

If you’re headed to Amador Wine Country, it is a must for you to stop here first and talk to Gregg. He was absolutely helpful in directing where we should go with the limited time we had, and knows the ins and outs of all the wineries in the area.

If you are going to visit Amador County’s many wineries but not sure where to start… START at Amador 360 Wine & Visitor Center and talk to Gregg!
Gregg makes you feel very welcome, is knowledgeable about the region and the wines and he describes them eloquently. I bought several bottles just based on his descriptions!
No need to go to Napa when you have Amador County and Gregg to guide you!

Thought I would just get directions, but was amazed that I could buy wine right there. Many of the wines I was interested didnt have tasting rooms or werent open on a weekday and here I had access to many of the wines I was interested in. The guy in the shop knows the region so well and was so passionate about the Wineries, telling stories about the families and the history. (Then he said he was from Georgia!!!) I didn’t think I was a zin fan, but after tasting the wines he had, I was sold. What a great idea to showcase the region in one place. He made a plan for us to head out and visit the wineries that were open and he was spot on with his suggestions. We’ve become fans of Amador!